


An Exit Plan

by withaflashoflove



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-11 08:18:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8971555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withaflashoflove/pseuds/withaflashoflove
Summary: Based on a tumblr prompt request: iris needs help with some report stuff and asks cisco to come with her because barry was really busy. Irisco ends up walking right into danger and barry comes to get them out and is just shaking his head at these two while they claim they didn’t need saving





	

“Iris can you reach that bar up there?”

She looks up to the ceiling and sure enough, there’s a bar just wide enough to fit the span of her arms. It’s like an upside-down pull-up bar and she realizes if she can latch onto it, she can probably prop her body up and push open the metal plate that’s right above it.

The only problem is, Iris is short. Usually a good-sized short, tall enough to do things she needs. She gets by. The other stuff, she figures out, usually with Barry’s assistance. But right now, there was no Barry. Right now there was only Cisco (and he didn’t help much, given they were the same height). And even with her wedges on, she’d still need another 24 inches, and there’s no way she can jump that high.

It also didn’t help that she was in a leather pantsuit. But that was another problem she couldn’t exactly worry about in this moment.

“Okay,” she takes a breath, eyeing the bar once again, before bringing her eyes back to meet Cisco’s, “you’re gonna need to give me a lift.”

“ _Me_?” he asks, bewildered look and all. 

She glares at him. “I’m sorry, did I miss the part where there were other people in this cellar with us?”

“I prefer vault,” he corrects, “we found the stash of cash. It’s a vault.”

“It’s _underground_!! And we need a way out!”

The added foot-stomp gets him to hiss a _shhhhhhhh!_ at her. “We can’t get caught now!” he angrily whispers.

“Which is why you have to lift me up!”

This would be so much easier with Barry. But Barry had a training session with Wally and no way was Joe going to let him out of that. So Iris couldn’t ask him to help her with this undercover project. One that involved investigating a flourishing new drug market in CCPN by taking a visit to the suspect club.

Instead, she called Cisco and he eventually agreed (though she owed him Twizzlers for a month). 

So they dressed up, her in a black leather pantsuit with red wedges, red bold lipstick, and a mean smokey eye to go with her curls. And him in a dark navy business suit with a black tie that made him look like a billion dollars, sporting a matching navy briefcase that didn’t hold any files, but did hold his phone, a micro-camera strategically glued on its edge that recorded the entire trip, and a First Aid kit, courtesy of Caitlin’s constant reminders of safety.

They both had their phones on them. And Iris had her gun, _just in case._

He stares at her a bit longer before his eyes dip down to her shoes, then find their way back to hers. “You gotta take those off.” 

“They give me an added lift Cisco,” she answers.

“They’ll _break_ my hands Iris,” he replies, matching the matter-of-fact tone of her voice.

She thinks about arguing this with him. But she can hear someone walking along the corridor when the music dips low, and she’s not too sure of how sneaky they were at getting down here, so she rolls her eyes and tugs the wedges off.

“Thank you,” he mutters.

“Okay,” Iris sets the other shoe aside, now significantly shorter due to the lost inches, “lift me up.”

He hesitates, but she doesn’t back down.

“Cisco, I can’t reach it alone!” 

“Why don’t I do it?” he asks, a mix of fear and pain in his voice. 

“Can you guarantee you can prop yourself up without falling to the ground instead?” she answers with a question. She’d heard about that pull-up incident a few years back, and every time she had attempted to get him to come to the gym with her, he had _something_ going on. What that something was, she never knew. So she wasn’t entirely convinced his fitness regimes gave him the necessary strength.

He shakes his head in resignation. 

“Great. Now put your hands together and stand still.”

He lets out a grumble but relocates himself to underneath the bar, outstretches both hands and intertwines them together, creating the perfect step for her.

“Okay,” she takes another breath, “hold tight.”

And she gives herself just a bit of a running start, as one foot comes to rest on his hands and her own hands grip his shoulders.

“ _Shit_ ,” Cisco groans, as he tries to balance the weight of her body, but she’s too off center and his body is already slanted to one side. “Iris…!”

“Stay still,” she mumbles, still attempting to gain balance, like she’s done this a million times before, but he hasn’t and this is proving a lot more painful than he anticipated.

“IRIS! I’m gonna fall!”

“Fine!”

With that he squats just before toppling over and she plants her feet back on the ground, the attempt of reaching the bar ending in failure.

“Fuck, that hurt,” he winces, rubbing his hands together.

Iris scrunches her nose before staring back up at the bar. This was their only way out. Somehow, they’d managed to find the cellar on their way down, when everyone was either drunk or high enough to not notice a thing. However, while this door allowed them to enter, it locked the minute it shut and neither Cisco nor Iris had any idea how to get it open, given there was no handle on the inside.

The metal plate on the ceiling was the only “opening” they’d found after searching the entire room, and even then, they didn’t know whether it was actually open.

“We need to try it again.” 

“It’s not gonna work,” he says with annoyance.

“It’s our only option. So turn around.”

“We’ll call Barry again.”

“We’ve tried that 10 times.”

“We’ll try again,” he suggests.

“Cisco, turn around,” she orders with determined eyes.

He cocks his head. “Why?”

“Because I’m gonna try to get on your shoulders.” “No!”

“Cisco!” 

“NO!” he says again, “you are not getting on my shoulders! We can try _this_ again!”

She sighs in frustration. “One more try. If it doesn’t work, we’re trying the shoulders route.”

“Fine.”

“ _Fine_ ,” she says through clenched teeth, preparing herself once again.

Neither of them had any drinks because Iris told him _it_ _was_ _unprofessional to drink on the job_ , a lesson she'd learned from Barry a few years back, but in this moment, she was wishing they’d gone against her advice, because both were way too stressed and lacking creative solutions. 

“Okay this time, don’t run,” Cisco instructs, “grab onto my shoulder first with one hand, then set your foot on my hands, then prop yourself up with the other hand.”

She nods her head, liking the new strategy. “Okay.” 

She does exactly what he tells her, and this time, the operation works, as she gets the other hand on his shoulder and manages to fit both feet in his hands for a rapid second before using the added lift to reach one hand to the bar, using that as a way to lift both feet up as she latches on with the other hand.

“How are you?!” he asks, looking up at her hanging body.

“Fine,” Iris huffs, already pulling herself up, using all the upper body strength she had. “Almost there…”

She keeps pulling up, feeling her muscles tense from the strain.

“Come on Iris,” Cisco says, using the little height advantage he had to grip her calves and help push her up. 

He feels her slipping from his grip and when he looks up again, he sees she’s managed to wrap one arm around the bar, along with one leg. 

“Okay!” she pants, rearranging herself so that her butt was firmly planted on the thin seat and her legs were dangling off, while both hands were gripping the side bar.

“Can you push up the plate?” he calls from below her.

“You need to toss me my gun,” Iris says, eyeing the plate, “I don’t think I’m strong enough to do it without added support.” 

“Where’s your gun?”

“Your briefcase.”

He quickly fumbles through his briefcase, careful not to dismantle the camera, before coming back to stand underneath her.

“You sure…?” he asks.

“How’s your aim?”

“Not great.”

Iris eyes his position from above. “Okay stand to my side and throw it up.”

“And if you don’t catch it?”

“Then you need to, otherwise it’ll crash to the ground and we might set someone off.”

He deadpans at her. “You mean all the struggle from before wasn’t enough?”

“Cisco…”

“Fine fine,” he remedies, “the safety’s on?”

“Yes.”

“Wait one more question.”

“What.”

“If you get out, how do I get out?”

“Can we figure that out once I manage to get out?” she questions, readjusting herself, the metal piercing her butt.

“Iris.” 

“I’ll call Wally or Barry again.”

“And if they don’t answer?”

“I don’t know” - she huffs with frustration and throws her head back, a little nauseous from the position she was in - “I’ll throw you a rope and reel you out.”

“Ir-”

“I need you to throw me the damn gun!”

“Okay okay,” he says, sensing her anger.

And that’s when the familiar red streak finds blinds his vision, and the next thing he knows, he’s in STAR Labs, with Iris by his side. 

“Are you safe? Are you okay?” he hears Barry tell Iris, watches him kiss her forehead, then her both her temples, and roam his hands along her sides, making sure no inch of her was harmed. 

“Geez thanks, I’m fine bro,” Cisco says. 

They both turn to look at him, Iris still gripping Barry’s waist, Barry looking stunned as hell. “What were you two thinking?!” he yells.

“Don’t,” Iris quickly stops him, pulling away from his embrace.

“Iris-”

“Barry Allen, I am not in the mood,” she eyes him before leaning down to check the briefcase. All the stuff they came with was still inside. And her wedges were resting by its side. Good.

“Why’d you decide to come _then_?” Cisco sighs, “like you seriously could’ve came at any other moment, including the part where Iris almost killed me, but you chose to come when we almost got out?” 

“Wh-what?” Barry stutters.

“Cisco has a point,” Iris says, dusting off her butt, “you have terrible timing.”

“Touche,” Cisco agrees, walking over to her.

Barry looks at the two, taking in their casualness, like they weren’t just trapped inside the basement of a club with no escape route, like he hadn’t just saved both their lives, like this was a regular occurrence for the two of them.

“Are you two serious?”

“Wait Iris,” Cisco says, ignoring Barry. _So much for a speedster_ , he thinks to himself. “Let me get the footage from the camera. Then I’ll send it to CCPN.” 

“Great thanks,” she adds, slipping both wedges back on and Barry can’t help but choke a little at the sight of the skin-tight leather hugging her curves, “I need a shower.”

She turns to Barry.

“Think you can use your speed for something good this time?”

He shakes his head. “That’s just cruel.”

“We called like 20 times!” Iris justifies.

“I was training with Wally! It’s not like Joe would’ve let me do anything but!”

“Okay Barry,” Cisco interrupts their conversation, “I think it’s in your best interest to take her home without argument, given she almost knocked a guy’s tooth out for trying to grope her earlier.”

He shifts his attention to Iris and adds, “I want Twizzlers starting tomorrow.”

“Deal,” the journalist smiles, before turning to her boyfriend. “Bear, I need to go home.”

And sometimes Barry gets so lost in her voice that it’s easy for him to put aside the entirety of whatever just happened, because her voice was all sweet and her eyes were big and welcoming, and he could still see traces of her smile, so he nods his head, his own smile involuntarily forming on his lips before he walks over to pick her up.

She wraps both arms around his neck, feeling the exhaustion of the pull-up task she just had, and nuzzles her nose into the crock of his neck.

“I’ll be back soon,” Barry tells Cisco before speeding off. 

“Mhmmmm,” Cisco answers to an empty room, pulling up a chair and twiddling the camera between his fingers, “soon will be tomorrow morning at 11:59.”

* * *

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, watching her strip the towel off and search her drawers for clothes.

“Babe, my answer will be the same as the answer I gave the last five times you asked,” she laughs, settling on a pair of blue panties and one of his sweatshirts.

He watches her pull them up, and then pull down the sweatshirt, its fabric dangling off her body, and though he was just touching her, skin-to-skin in the shower, underneath the hot water and warmth, he already misses her body wrapped in his arms. So he makes his way over to the bed, sits on its edge, and pulls her down on his lap, so that she’s straddling him.

“I’m just worried,” he says honestly.

Iris plays with his hair, brushing back a few of the stray strands, before pressing her lips in their place. She lingers for a while. “I’m okay.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” she confirms, this time kissing his lips, and he uses the unhurried kisses to steady her in place, before gently shifting her body to the bed so that she’s laying on her back, and he lets his come to rest on top of hers.

He doesn’t break their kiss till he hears her moan as one hand slips underneath the fabric, but it doesn’t sound like a _happy_ moan, it sounds like an _I’m-in-pain_ moan, so he quickly pushes his body off hers. 

“Iris…” 

“I’m okay,” she sighs, rubbing her stomach, “it’s just a little tender.” 

He sees her hand massaging the skin, and he doesn’t think twice about the next move, tenderly removing the sweatshirt off her, leaving her exposed skin between them.

He presses a kiss to her neck, then makes his way down, his hands still massaging her stomach, before his lips replace them, and this time, he’s sure the moan he hears is one of relief.

“Thank you,” Iris hums, running her fingers through his hair.

“Mhm,” he whispers, placing another series of kisses to the area, his hands already resting on her thighs, preparing to take care of those spots next.

He stays like that for a few more minutes, until he hears her breathing come to a slow pace, so he lifts his head and sees she’s closed her eyes, the fingers that were roaming his hair stoic now. 

Barry takes a few more seconds to admire her before pulling himself up and placing another kiss to her forehead.

He pulls up the sheets and covers them both, keeping one arm around her waist, careful not to hurt her, and the other grazing her cheek.

He’d get a better explanation as to what happened from Cisco tomorrow. But right now, having Iris home was enough for him.


End file.
